"From Magic to Mathematics and Back"

Thursday, November 5, 2009
4:00 p.m.
B102 Van Vleck Hall
480 Lincoln Drive

Reception to precede the lecture in 911 Van Vleck Hall

Persi Diaconis
Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, Stanford University

Sometimes the way that magic tricks work is even more amazing than the tricks themselves. Professor Diaconis will illustrate with tricks that fool magicians (demonstrations provided). The tricks depend on hidden mathematics: combinatorics and group theory (the talk is aimed at a general audience). The math behind the tricks has applications to secret codes, decoding DNA, robot vision and much else. Changing the tricks leads to math problems beyond our current understanding.

Additional seminar to the Department of Mathematics: Friday, November 6, 2009, 4:00 PM, B102 Van Vleck Hall “Adding Numbers and Shuffling Cards”

Persi Diaconis is a Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Stanford University. He works on ‘real world’ problems using probability, statistics, group theory and combinatorics. He has a colorful history: ten years a s a professional magician. An early MacArthur Fellowship winner and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, he likes to explain mathematics ‘in English’.